Beginning of a Legend
by Cottonmouth25
Summary: A beach, an ocean, and a posse of unusual creatures are there to welcome a stranded soul with no idea of who he is or where he comes from. But he cannot shake the feeling that this is the beginning of something - the beginning of a legend. Oneshot written in honor of the new Pokémon Sun & Moon trailer. Also an alternate future of "Tale of a Legend", perhaps?
**_Beginning of a Legend_**

 **Salutations, greetings, and many great hellos!**

 **This is a one-shot I wrote in honor of Pokemon Sun & Moon. It'll show how I interpreted various parts of the trailer, such as the possible significance of different locations and the roles of the Legendaries. More importantly, it takes place in the same universe as "Pokemon Black & White: Tale of a Legend", and may end up evolving into a possible AU or sequel.**

 **Something I must tell you is that I do not own Pokemon or anything associated with it.**

 **Let's begin!**

-.-.-.-.-.

The first thing he noticed was the pain.

It was all over his body. A pounding headache, a stiff neck, strained arms and legs, a yawning emptiness in his belly. All of that, and more besides, was the first thing he noticed.

He moved.

Underneath him was ground, soft and gritty. All around him, a constant rhythm made up of two alternating sounds – almost like an inhale and an exhale, only much grander and deeper. He just realized that he, too, was inhaling and exhaling. The air tasted faintly of salt.

For a long time, he lay there. He did nothing but listen and feel to what was around him. He had no reason to rush.

 _Where am I?_ he pondered. _How did I get here? Why am I here? And who, exactly, am I?_

The fresh air was invigorating once he breathed in enough of it. At last feeling ready to shift into a sitting position, he braced himself and, despite his aching limbs, pushed himself up onto his rear end.

What he saw astounded him.

It was bright – very bright. The sun beat down from a cloudless sky onto the landscape below, saturating everything with its life-giving light. It brought warmth with it, just enough to make him feel comfortable. The ground on which he sat was made up of sand. In front of him was the sea, a sparkling greenish-blue expanse that stretched as far as the eye could see. The inhale-exhale noise, he discovered, was the sound of ocean waves going out and coming in.

Then, he discovered something else. He couldn't see very well.

 _Glasses,_ he thought. _I have a pair._

Turning his fuzzy eyes to the ground around him, he scanned the blurry shapes of ocean debris and seashells, looking for the adornment which would sharpen his eyesight. After a few moments, his hand closed around a pair of lenses, and he smiled. When he felt the glasses resting once again on the bridge of his nose, the familiarity made him relax. The spectacular sights before him became crystal-clear, allowing him to admire them fully.

 _But,_ he thought, _that brings me back to the question – where am I? How did I get here?_

He felt a headache coming on again. Shaking his head as if to shrug away the questions, he raised his head and looked around for something – anything. As nice as it was here, he could not stay here on this beach forever. He needed to start searching for, perhaps, signs of life. Civilization, if he was lucky.

Without people, he could survive for as long as he pleased – without food or fresh water, he could not.

Bracing himself, he stood up. His legs shook as he rose, and he worried they would give out. They ached, and felt weak. He must not have eaten in a while. But he needn't have feared, as he was able to steady himself with a mere few steps forward. Nodding to himself in satisfaction, he cast his gaze downwards and allowed it to sweep over himself. Green hoodie, black pants, grey shirt… there wasn't anything out of the ordinary, that he noticed at least.

He moved down the beach slowly yet confidently. Nothing disturbed his walk. The sound of the waves was soothing, he observed.

The beach seemed to stretch on to infinity, and after a while, he was beginning to think that he was lost. Was he only going around in circles? It certainly seemed like it to him.

And the sun was not doing him any favors. As the hours ground on, it seemed to get brighter and brighter until he couldn't look at any part of the sky without grimacing and ducking his head, for fear of going instantly blind. There was nowhere else to go but backwards, though, so he did his best to avoid the damaging brightness and continued on his wanderings.

The beach did end, eventually. A towering cliff stood in his way now, so high that its summit was invisible, swallowed up by the blinding white orb that hung in the sky directly above it. A curious zigzagging pattern of stairs had been dug into the side of the cliff, rather conveniently, if he was to form an opinion. He would not have to turn back – he could press on.

He began his climb.

When he reached the pinnacle, the light was on a higher scale than any he had seen before. The entire sky seemed to be aglow with blazing white light. He couldn't keep his eyes open, for if he tried, the orbs would be crying out in pain. He caught glimpses of stone pillars rising from the pavement which covered the ground, and a much bigger pillar that seemed to press into the rock behind it, but the light forced his eyes closed every time he tried to get even so much as a glance.

"RHHOOOGRROOOAAAA!"

All at once, the light faded, and he opened his eyes in time to see a white, four-legged beast with a shining mane land lightly in front of him. Then the light came back with a vengeance, bursting back into existence so suddenly that he fell backwards with eyes instinctively squeezed shut.

When the light faded once more, he didn't look up until several seconds later, when he was sure that it wouldn't be back. He gazed in wonderment at the stone pillars for a moment, which seemed to have been arranged into a temple of some sort, then blinked – the beast was no longer there.

He turned around, and thought he saw a glimpse of white disappearing into the forest. He hadn't known there was a forest up here, not with the sun shining as fiercely as it had. The way the trees grew thickly together and quenched the ground beyond with darkness was inviting.

 _That's where I'll head next,_ he decided. _It'll be shady, and chances are there will be food and water somewhere to be found._

To his relief, the jungle was much cooler and shadier than the beach he had awoken on. He was no longer alone, or at least he no longer felt as such – instead of hearing nothing but the waves lapping over the sand, he was hearing the chirping of insects in the bushes and the singing of birds in the trees. There was even a little dirt path that wound sinuously through the foliage, as if the jungle was giving him an idea of where to go instead of letting him wander aimlessly.

The farther he followed the path, though, the more his questions came back to haunt him. Time dragged on, and still no answers revealed themselves. He was beginning to think they'd elude him forever – and that this jungle would last forever, too. To him, it didn't feel like much time had passed, but the sunlight filtering through the blanket of leaves and branches overhead was already turning an orangey-red as the day grew old.

He thought of the great white beast with the terrible roar, and shuddered. He didn't quite like the idea of traveling all by himself with something like that roaming around. Maybe finding a place to spend the night would be more prudent.

Off the path, he found a patch of dirt somewhat hidden by some nearby ferns. That would do. After plucking a few large leaves from the ferns, he set them on the ground and lay on top of them, peering up at what little of the sky he could see. The stars twinkled back at him from beyond the treetops.

 _Where is this?_ the question snuck up on him, causing him to jolt. _Why did I wake up on the beach, in the middle of nowhere? And most frustrating of all… who am I?_

That was the question which he thought he'd be able to answer most easily. But as it turned out, it was the hardest. He knew he had an identity of some kind, but no matter how hard he thought, he could only come up with… _Lost. Stranded. Nowhere to go._

Round and round the questions circled inside his head, which started to make him drowsy. His eyelids slipped shut, all the tension in his body left, and…

…a sound came from elsewhere in the forest, somewhere close by. It snapped him back to reality, and he sat up to better listen. It did not sound good. Different voices were shouting, punctuated by other sounds that certainly didn't originate from someone's mouth. The sounds of a fight.

He was up and moving, his curiosity getting the better of him. It wasn't long before he reached a break in the trees, stepping onto a wide dirt path completely exposed to the sky. Soft moonlight touched everything here as it fell from the night sky and down to earth. The path looked like it had been naturally carved by the elements, but was also dotted with tall rocks with carved face-like patterns on them. Farther up the path… were those stairs?

A sign of civilization in the middle of the jungle brought great relief to him. Or, it would have, if there had been time to allow it to sink in. As it were, there was some activity going on.

Three small creatures ran about in a frenzy of action, clearly fighting with one another. A small black feline with red markings on its muzzle and paws arched its back and slashed wildly. Its target, a blue creature with flippers and a fancy ruff, blew a bubble with its nose and bounced off of it, jumping out of the way of the cat's claws. It opened its mouth and shot a jet of water at the cat, which yowled in pain as it was sent tumbling into the dirt.

The seal stood up on its hind flippers, like it was readying itself to finish the job, when a storm of leaves – or maybe feathers – fell down and slashed at its fur, making it fall over with a squeak. A furious trill came from above as a small brown owl swooped down with its talons ready – only for the cat, who had been spared from further harm, spat out a fireball that exploded against the owl's back and sent it falling out of the air with feathers smoking.

He stopped. A strange feeling stirred inside of him – he did not want to stand by and watch such chaos continue.

The two mammals stopped what they were doing immediately when they saw a human leap into their midst and catch the bird in his arms.

"Mrowrrrr?" asked the one called Litten by the other humans. The water soaking its fur was ignored in favor of the unfamiliar newcomer.

"Bwark," the one known as Popplio barked, shaking its head. It was as clueless as its friend, with whom it occasionally fought, was.

Paying no attention to their voices, he – the human – looked down and sighed when he saw the round little bird nestled safely in his arms. He inquired softly, "Are you okay?"

"Kooooo…" it, known as Rowlet, replied in a daze. When its large eyes fixed themselves on his face, they stared intently.

He put it down on the ground, where it was joined by the cat and seal. They didn't seem so much like true enemies any more. Perhaps they merely had a misunderstanding with each other, and needed to let off steam.

"Are you done fighting?" he asked, looking over the three of them.

Rowlet rotated its head to glance significantly at Litten, then swiveled it the other way to do the same to Popplio. A silent agreement was reached between the three friends – this was an unfamiliar human, whom had come from out of the jungle, and therefore, he might be lost. They would take the human to the human village where they lived, and see what their master could do. Their master was wise. He'd know exactly what to do in this situation.

"Bwark bwark!" Popplio exclaimed, its naturally loud voice perfect for getting the human's attention. It started to waddle down the path, pausing for a second to turn back and let out a few more urgent barks before continuing on its way.

He tilted his head, noticing the vigor with which the seal moved. It seemed to be in a hurry. He watched it go for a moment, only for the cat to leap into his field of vision and turn its lamp-like yellow glare on him.

"Mrowrrrrr," Litten purred, flicking its tail this way and that. When it was sure it had the human's attention, it made a big show of turning around and following Popplio in the direction of the town.

He nodded to himself as the cat turned its back, figuring things out slowly but surely. "You want me to follow you. Is that what you're doing?"

A "Koooo!" came from a distance startlingly close to his ear. The little owl flapped its wings and rested its talons on his left shoulder, making itself comfortable regardless of whether he wanted it there or not. It hooted a few more times and pointed with its wing.

"So I _should_ follow," he deduced.

Up ahead, he could definitely hear the cat make an exasperated noise. The seal barked loudly, admonishing it for being rude. The owl on his shoulder overheard and chuckled softly.

If he was skeptical that the creatures were actually able to help him, he still decided that there was no harm in humoring them. His guides walked at a rather slow pace thanks to their tiny feet (and flippers), so he took the time to glance around and admire the exotic scenery. In full moonlight, it was beautiful.

He tilted his head upwards so that he, too, could be illuminated. The great crescent moon, large and golden-white, hung there amongst the millions of stars. It was an unearthly sight to behold.

"CHREECHEEEERRHH!"

The hissing screech tore through the silence, and he whipped around in hopes of spotting the source. A rush of wind came from above, and suddenly, an ethereal creature swooped low through the night, close enough for him to see its midnight-black wings gracefully beating and its headdress glinting.

He traced the thing's path with awe-struck eyes, and watched as it momentarily silhouetted itself against the moon. With its wings raised, it matched the shape of the crescent moon almost perfectly, before letting out another cry and vanishing into the blackness.

Witnessing such a spectacular creature take flight into the mysterious yonder awakened something within the lost human. He felt a strange emotion – like something deep inside of him was telling him that this was an omen of things to come. Waking up with no memories of who he was or where he came from – that beach was the beginning of an adventure, and only now was it unfolding.

But most importantly, he realized something else.

 _My name is Volantes._

-.-.-.-.-.

 **Would you readers of "Tale of a Legend" want to see this turn into a full-fledged sequel someday?**

 **I'm so pumped for the release of Sun & Moon, you have no idea. Which version are you getting? I'm going for Moon – I do love that dreamcatcher-bat. I even thought up a cool name for it: "Lunoptera". I dunno what the lion/tiger should be called, but eh.**

 **Hope you enjoyed this! Send me some reviews please!**


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